Up and Down Wall Street

Hits, Misses, and Stealth Realty Plays

How some stocks we criticized have done. And a look at China's many hidden real-estate-linked stocks.

With the stock market effervescing toward the Champagne close of a year that toasted 50 record highs for the Dow industrials, you might think I'd be gnashing my teeth and muttering "Curses…foiled again!" as the writer of this weekly's stereotypical bear stories.

But as luck would have it, I spotted a fair number of glasses that really proved to be half-empty this year. Among the stocks that somehow managed to be left behind as the Rapture lifted most others were the robot-surgery outfit Intuitive Surgical...